{"id":110412,"date":"2026-06-29T14:36:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T09:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=110412"},"modified":"2026-06-29T14:43:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T09:13:00","slug":"murchison-widefield-array-mwa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/murchison-widefield-array-mwa\/","title":{"rendered":"Murchison Widefield Array (MWA)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Murchison Widefield Array Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), astronomers recently discovered a new millisecond pulsar as part of the ongoing Southern-sky MWA Rapid Two-metre (SMART) survey.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Murchison Widefield Array<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>low-frequency radio telescope<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> located at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in <\/span><b>Western Australia<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, where the<\/span><b> future low-frequency Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be built.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>collaboration <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">between<\/span><b> 20 research institutions <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">in <\/span><b>five countries<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (<\/span><b>Australia, Canada, China, Japan<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and the <\/span><b>United States<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) and is led by Curtin University, Australia.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is made of <\/span><b>4,096 spider-like antennas<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> tuned to <\/span><b>receive signals<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from the sky <\/span><b>between 70 and 300 MHz.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is special for its <\/span><b>very wide field of view, high angular resolution,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> nanosecond time resolution, and digital pointing agility.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This makes the instrument invaluable for <\/span><b>quickly mapping the sky<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and studying rare and faint events as they happen.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The MWA is <\/span><b>used to study:<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>early Universe<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, particularly the <\/span><b>Epoch of Reionization, when the first stars and galaxies formed.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The structure and evolution of galaxies and galaxy clusters.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>Sun and space weather<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, including solar flares and coronal mass ejections.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Transient radio sources,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> such as <\/span><b>pulsars <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><b>fast radio bursts.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The interstellar medium and <\/span><b>cosmic magnetism.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Key Facts about Southern-sky MWA Rapid Two-metre (SMART)<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SMART pulsar survey is an ongoing project to <\/span><b>discover new pulsars (neutron stars) in the southern sky using the MWA.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is the <\/span><b>only pulsar survey<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> capable of <\/span><b>looking for pulsars in the Southern Hemisphere at low frequencies <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(140-170 MHz).<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once complete, it is expected to discover hundreds of new pulsars.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Apart from its inherent scientific value, it also serves as a <\/span><b>valuable reference for future pulsar searches<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> planned with the <\/span><b>low-frequency SKA.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Key Facts about Square Kilometre Array\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is an <\/span><b>international effort <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to build the <\/span><b>world\u2019s largest and most sensitive radio telescope<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to help better understand the <\/span><b>history of the universe.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is <\/span><b>co-located in Australia (SKA-Low)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>South Africa (SKA-Mid)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with operational headquarters in the UK, and is expected to revolutionize<\/span><b> radio astronomy.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The construction of the project <\/span><b>officially started<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on 5 December <\/span><b>2022<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The telescope will consist of <\/span><b>hundreds of antennas<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that will generate unprecedented data volumes.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is meant to observe the universe in a new way and probe questions related to the <\/span><b><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/upsc-exam\/the-universe-origin-and-its-composition\/\" target=\"_blank\">origins of the universe<\/a>, the formation and evolution of galaxies,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and seeking the <\/span><b>origins of life.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>India became a member<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of SKA in December 2022.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Other countries<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> involved in this project are <\/span><b>Australia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Canada, China,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>What are Pulsars?<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pulsars are <\/span><b>rapidly rotating neutron stars <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that <\/span><b>blast out pulses of radiation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at <\/span><b>regular interval<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">s ranging from <\/span><b>seconds to milliseconds.\u00a0<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Neutron stars <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">are highly <\/span><b>dense remnants of massive stars <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that have collapsed,<\/span><b> composed mainly of neutrons<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and other elementary particles.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Pulsars <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">have very<\/span><b> strong magnetic fields, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">which<\/span><b> funnel jets of particles out <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">along the two magnetic poles. These accelerated particles<\/span><b> produce very powerful beams of light<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Often, the magnetic field is not aligned with the spin axis, so those beams of particles and light are swept around as the star rotates.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>periodicity<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of pulsars is <\/span><b>caused by these beams of light crossing the line of sight on Earth<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, with the pulsar appearing to <\/span><b>\u2018switch off\u2019 at points <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">when the<\/span><b> light is facing away from us<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. The time between these pulses is the \u2018period\u2019 of the pulsar.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pulsars have been <\/span><b>primarily observed at radio wavelengths.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pulsar <\/span><b>masses <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">range between<\/span><b> 1.18 and 1.97 times<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that of the <\/span><b>Sun<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, but most pulsars have a mass 1.35 times that of the Sun.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>New<\/b><strong>s: <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2026-06-millisecond-pulsar-murchison-widefield-array.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">PHYS<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Murchison Widefield Array is a low-frequency radio telescope located at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory (MRO) in Western Australia. Read more about Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), Location, Aim, Key Facts, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":110378,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8385,21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-110412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-murchison-widefield-array-mwa","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110412"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110458,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110412\/revisions\/110458"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}